Funding Projects: Anatomy of a Matching Grant

by Daniel Rickett

From the start, Africa Equip Ministry (AEM), based in Nairobi, Kenya, was a ministry that had very little money but local Christians were enthusiastically involved in it.

From the start, Africa Equip Ministry (AEM), based in Nairobi, Kenya, was a ministry that had very little money but local Christians were enthusiastically involved in it.

The ministry had a choice—scale down its plans or look for outside resources. Under the circumstances, scaling down seemed almost immoral. For a full year volunteers had ministered among children and unwed mothers in Nairobi’s worst slum. Dozens of prostitutes had come to Christ and as a result they had instantly lost their means of income. How could they survive?

AEM’s success with slum children had also reached an impasse. Hundreds of children were turning up for every program they offered. They could not turn them away and leave them to forage for food in garbage heaps.

AEM volunteers had successfully reached into the lives of drug addicts, prostitutes and desperate children. But the need far exceeded their resources. How would they get the funds needed to take their ministry to the next stage? By God’s grace, a foundation grant came through at just the right time. Vital services were set in place thanks to a matching grant from the Mustard Seed Foundation of Arlington, Virginia.

Foundation grants are not easy to get, but they can provide a large sum that might otherwise be impossible. The key is to find a foundation that shares your concerns. If you present a clear plan of action and demonstrate that you have strong local commitment, there’s a good chance you can win a grant. The process often takes months, and sometimes more than a year.

Two years earlier, when AEM first got underway, the chairman of its board asked me to look for potential funding sources. When I heard about Mustard Seed Foundation, it sounded like a good match.

Foundation grant writing is one of the most competitive areas of fundraising, requiring detailed answers to a series of questions. An incomplete application will immediately disqualify it from consideration. A proposal must be well-written, clear in its purpose and include specific information. Most importantly, the proposal should match the interests of the foundation.

Thankfully, Mustard Seed Foundation was very clear about its interests and priorities. The Foundation sent me a detailed description of its grant categories, funding priorities and application procedures. The descriptions allowed me to see where AEM fit in the Foundation’s scope of interests.

Normally, you have to study the recent giving history of a foundation to figure out its “program biases.” In this case, the Foundation made our job easier by listing its preferences. For example, in keeping with its name, Mustard Seed Foundation had a bias to the small. It also had “a bias toward one-time rather than repeated grants.” That told us we wouldn’t be able to go back and ask for more funds for the same project.

Mustard Seed also indicated that ninety percent of its grants were small, averaging under $5,000. That gave us an idea of what to expect and how much to ask for. Most foundations prefer to start with small grants. Later as they become more confident about your ministry, the size of grant awards may increase. Since we knew we wouldn’t get a second chance, we asked for an amount that would get the job done and hoped for the best.

Another Mustard Seed bias was for local church accountability. Because AEM is a parachurch organization, it was important to show how its ministry was connected to local churches.

After studying the Foundation’s priorities and biases, we were able to craft a proposal in a way that made sense to the Foundation and accurately represented AEM’s ministry.

Several months passed before we heard from the Foundation. The answer was “yes,” with conditions. The Foundation was willing to give a three-to-one matching grant. AEM now had a new challenge.

AEM had requested a grant of $15,000. The Foundation promised $7,500 on condition that AEM raise $2,500 within Kenya for the specified project. The reason for the matching grant was to ensure that local churches were supportive of the ministry. It also stretched the ministry’s fundraising capabilities. In this case, AEM staff found they were capable of more even when they thought they had exhausted all possibilities.

To raise local money, AEM sold clothes and maize flour, asked friends to make cash contributions and local churches to take up a special offering. And, very importantly, organizers of the fundraising drive contributed substantially from their own income. It was a stretch for everyone, but when the money was counted, they had garnered $2,637.

Before awarding a matching grant, foundations typically request verification of local funding, such as photocopies of pledges, an income statement, or a balance sheet from a bank account showing appropriate deposits.

AEM promptly acknowledged receipt of the grant. They will report again in about twelve months. That report will show how the money was spent and describe any results of ministry activity.

Some foundations want more involvement. Foundations often favor a long-term relationship and an influential role in the ongoing success of the ministry.

All-in-all, AEM received a sizable amount of money at a time when it really needed it. But from start to finish the grant process took eighteen months. When the grant was approved, it was half of what they had asked for. Still, it was a substantial amount.

Funding through foundations is less than ten percent of most missions’ total income. For this reason grants are best suited for start-up funds or special projects. Foundations rarely finance operational budgets or cover the deficits of existing programs.

AEM was able to benefit from a grant because it already had an ongoing base of support. In fact, if I were to tell the whole story, I would include the heroic efforts of a group of volunteers in the US who have partnered with AEM from the beginning. Their relationship and involvement with the team in Kenya is a wonderful example of Christian brotherhood in action. But that’s another story.

Daniel Rickett is the director of research at Geneva Global Inc. (www.genevaglobal.com), a professional services firm dedicated to moving funds to life-changing projects in the hard places of the world.

EMQ, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 512-514. Copyright © 2004 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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